The League of Extraordinary Bloggers: The FIND

It's League of Extraordinary Bloggers time once again kids!!! And this time around, the topic is one that's extremely near and dear to this second-hand-aholic:

"The find. What was your best/favorite yard sale or flea market find?"

By my very nature I am always on the hunt for toys and books and other geeky items as old and as (more importantly) CHEAP as possible. As the title of the blog would suggest, I do most of my "hunting" at Goodwill. But I don't limit my searches to this. I frequent antique stores, flea markets, rummage sales, thrift shops, and almost most importantly... the yard and/or garage sale. 

What's BIZARRE about this topic coming up this week is that just this past weekend I went to one of the only yard-sales I actually made it out to this season. It was only a few houses down from my own, so I could walk there. Now, I've been under the weather with some pretty serious crud lately, so even a quick jaunt was kind of risk... but I was going stir-crazy in the house and... and... YARD SALE you guys! 

Yard-sale Flier by Andrew Liang
More Rock n' Roll than any yard-sale I've EVER been to.

As I left my lawn to head down the road, my daughter warned me that she had already been down and it was "just some old lady" and that I shouldn't even bother. I almost didn't go. I almost stayed home. Honestly, I probably should have stayed home. But I went down anyway, the lure of such a close yard-sale beckoning me down the street like a siren's song. 

Come check my s**t out y'all.

And THIS my dear readers... is what I found when I got down there:

This glorious tub of action figures from the 80's and 90's. Literally jumped into my arms like an old cat at a shelter and purred its way into my heart... and my wallet. The guy wanted 60 bucks for the whole tote. I countered with 30. We settled on 40 in the end... and I'm still not sure it was the deal I was looking for... but damn if I didn't get a whole lot of plastic goodness in there that I am SOOO excited about. 

In fact, there was SO much stuff in that bin that I decided to break it up into a series of posts even before I saw what this week's topic was going to be. If I paid that much for this stuff... I was sure as hell going to get my blogging value out of it. 

Today's post is going to be dedicated to some of the cooler, random things I found in that tub. Stuff I like a lot, or stuff I never knew I wanted until I got it in this tub. There's a few morts in the mix for sure... but I'll get to those another time. I won't link all of the posts about what I found in this bin on the League page... but I will link to them here on this page, so if you're discovering this page through Cool and Collected, you can see what else I found later when I post about it. 

This is literally how I felt when I got that bin home. I hadn't even looked at all the toys in there yet! I gave it a general paw-around and saw so much stuff that made my jaw drop that I just wanted to get it home! So like Scrooge up there... let's dive in! 

Do you remember The Pirates of Dark-Water? Well I do. I remember it fondly. I honestly think it was a bit before it's time, style-wise, which is why it didn't flourish. I think if they'd tried to revive this series around the time the first Pirates of the Caribbean was coming out, it would have had more of a fighting chance. Finding this threesome (well, foursome if you count extra-Ren) was extremely exciting for me. 

Here we have Ioz on the left and Ren on the right. These are two of the heroes from the show. Their goal was to track down 13 magical treasures that needed to be brought together to stop a dark force that was creating "dark water" that was slowly destroying their world. 

This is Bloth. He's from the "People of Wal-Mart" tumblr. Just kidding! But I've seen people in similar outfits on there. Bloth is an evil pirate captain who wants to collect the 13 treasures for his own greedy purposes. He's a real jerk. But man is his top sexy. And it takes a confident man to pull off those calf-high flip-flops he's rocking. 

Then we have this trio of weirdos. I think the Battle Troll on the far left was one of the more enticing toys in that bin. There was just so much STUFF in there that he really stood out in angry red and gold. Of course you can see there were other cool toys in there as well. 

On the left here you'll see Sir Trollohad of the second series of Battle Trolls that came out. I HATED trolls back when they were a "thing" but I think I NEED to track down some of the other Battle Trolls in the series. The King Koopa figure is actually from a Nintendo Trophy, released in 1988 titled "Bowser Guards Princess Toadstool". He would normally be sitting on a red-brick base and holding a pink-dressed princess on his left hand. But y'know? I like him just the way he is. 

And then we have this guy. He looks like Rocksteady on steroids if the steroids were first treated with mutagen. This guys actual name is "Hoof" and he's from the Todd McFarlane toys "Total Chaos" series. I'm not a Todd McFarlane fan at all... but I love some of his toys. This one is just amazing.

So now my little green Halloween Troll has a big red buddy to hang out with. Aaaaand! The turtles have a new enemy to be wary of. I think they look GREAT together. 

Next up we have a random trio of warriors who are ready to FIGHT! At first I got REALLY excited because I thought the guy on the far left was a Hamato Yoshi figure... and he is in fact from the TMNT line... but not a pre-mutation Splinter (or his owner... or whatever)...

He is in fact a Kenshin figure from the time traveling third TMNT live-action film. Plus... Yay! Captain Planet!!! He's our hero. Gonna take pollution down to zero! I was never a huge Captain Planet fan... but I watched it. I liked the concept of the five different heroes with power rings based on elements coming together to summon the ultimate hero of Cap-P. Even if the show did sometimes have some creepy... kind of invasive "morals" from time to time. 

The guy on the far right is Vortex from the Double Dragon line. I'm not a huge Double Dragon fan, to be honest, but I love the figures. I just bought a pair of the main heroes a few months back, and now I have their spinning ally to add to my shelf. Plus, his spin-attack action still works!!!

And in the last batch of figures I'm showcasing in this first post, I have these three oddballs. A video game villain, a movie pulp-hero's alter-ego, and a... Creepy Crawler?

Again, as a pretty much non-gamer geek, I was not familiar with the Mega Man villain Guts-Man. He's a super strong robot, but more importantly, he's colorful, he's huge, and he's just a TON of fun. Next to him here we have a "Commantis" figure from a Creepy Crawlers action figure line. I didn't even know that Creepy Crawlers HAD action figures. Guess what! There was a cartoon show as well. No idea. I like this guy's look. His color scheme and that grin! He looks like he's a Captain Planet villain or something.

And who's this shy little guy? Why that's Lamont Cranston, ater-ego of the pulp-noir action hero The Shadow! Why does his head retract into his torso like George Costanza's junk in the ocean? His head slides down so you can fit a different head over it to "transform" him into the Shadow. Why they had to make the process so elaborate and convoluted (leaving us with a ridiculously introverted tuxedo-clad guy) when they could have just slid an accessory over his head and torso? Only the Shadow knows!

So begins the epic telling of the Yardsale Bin of 2013!!! Keep your eyes peeled here on Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks in the future to see more of its MAAAAAAAAGICAL contents!!!

In the meantime, let's see what some of my fellow league members are counting among their epic finds:

- Erik Johnson (Illustrator) shows off yard sale art. Some for his walls... some for his boooooody...

- That LUCKY BASTARD Eric Stettmeier over at Toyriffic shows of a whole LOT of vintage MotU that he got for a WAY better deal than my find. Sad face. 

- The Sexy Geek over at his House of Swag tries to melt your heart with a story of Spider-Men lost... and Spider-Men found. 

- Brian, our fearless leader, shows off the Ghosts of Yard-sales Past over at Cool & Collected!

That's it for me tonight guys! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill (and yard-sale) Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Geek Mailbag: October Toys O.M.F.G.!!!

WARNING: This is a long one! It focuses an inordinate amount of time on two small sets of monochrome plastic mini-figures. Like MUSCLE things. If these kinds of toys (or the long and boring dissection of toys similar to them...) are not you "thing". Then you'd best sit this one out. You have been warned.

So a WHILE back (in July) I mentioned that I had ordered some stuff from both the Strange Kids Club and October Toys... and I never really got around to talking about what I had ordered from October Toys... which if you are familiar with ME and my obsession with mini-figures, and you are familiar at all with October Toys... it shouldn't have been a huge mystery to figure out. 

Here's the bulk of what arrived in my package: OMFG!!! (Or Outlandish Mini Figure Guys for the uninitiated...) along with a bunch of fun extras. The fun extras MOSTLY included IMPOSSIBLE to photograph collectors cards and art cards of various different sizes ans styles. If I can get some more shots of them before I post this you might even get to see them. 

I ordered a pack of both Series 1 and Series 2. At the time of this writing, Series 3 has not been released yet but it LOOKS AWESOME and will be ordered ASAP. Series 1 was no longer available in the flesh/pink color, so I got it in purple. Series 2 I got in flesh/pink. It doesn't bother me that they don't match though, as when I was a kid I always had a healthy mix of the multi-colored MUSCLE figures from the big 28-packs in with my flesh colored guys. So this just serves to remind me even more of those classic toys! 

Let's jump right it with series 1 shall we? I picked these up because they looked like an incredible homage to M.U.S.C.L.E. figures of the 80's... and that is EXACTLY what these turned out to be once I got them in hand. These look great! The plastic is very reminiscent of the old MUSCLE guys in that it's hard but very faintly rubbery. This may also be weird to comment on, but here goes: They have this awesome plastic-y smell that I always associate with new toys. Yes. I sniffed these toys. 

I think the only real dud for me out of this first series is "Stroll" who doesn't look terrible, but who also doesn't really do a whole lot for me. His concept art was interesting, but he's just sort of plain in figure form. Being my least favorite OMFG is still sort of like being my least favorite ice cream. I still won't turn my nose up at it. Stroll is still pretty cool. I like his clawed hands and his little naked/furless tushie (in the back).

I think "Multiskull" is actually the contender for my favorite one of the bunch. He ties with only one other figure. Multiskull is just incredible though. The fine detail that went into the sculpt is just mind-blowing. He's like some sort of skull-golem, made up entirely of... well, skulls. His chest is one giant central skull, with a smaller central skull on top for his head. The arms and legs sprouting out of this are just piled-together chains of smaller skulls. Even his hands are skulls! I love the little detail of that right-handed skull with its mouth gaping open. So cool. 

Next up is "The Phantom Out-House" which is pretty just what she is: An outhouse. Why do I keep calling her a "she"? Because that classic moon symbol was the ladies room symbol way back in the day. Boy's outhouses had Suns cut into them. Fun fact! I know for a fact that "Phantom Outhouse" was not this character's original name. It was originally going to be the "Phantom Sh*thouse" I personally like the change of name. The arms and legs are almost certainly formed from excrement... human or otherwise. I really like the sense of humor behind this character, and love the way she looks in purple plastic. 

Next up is my second contender for favorite character of the bunch. "King Castor"! He's another beautifully detailed sculpt. From the awesome tower-like grasping left arm to the cannon-equipped right fist, King Castor is ready for combat! And his face (sculpted squarely between his shoulders there, in the circular window) looks like he's ready to kick butt and chew bubblegum, and he's all out of bubblegum! I seriously LOVE this guy. He's just so craggy and gnarly, and full of detail.

Finally we have "The Crawdad Kid" which I think reminds me the most of a classic MUSCLE figure. He just sort of has the stance and the build for it more than the rest. I really like all the weird little details on this one. He appears to be some sort of crab/man hybrid (or Crawdad I guess) in a fisherman's slicker and boots. But he also sort of appears to have a face UNDER the crab-shell head thing, leading me to believe the crab might only be a hat or helmet or something. He's definitely cool though. 

Onto series 2! Overall I was less impressed with this series as a whole. They've grown on me though, and I'm still pretty happy with the whole OMFG line considering. So let's take a look. 

First up, Grim Gourd. He is squarely my second-favorite figure of the lot. He's a Jack 'o Lantern with arms and legs for crying out loud! I really like the detail put into the fine grain of his shell. That face! He's so sinister! Just so great that this line has a Halloween character represent! Since he's so squat and stocky he feels like a goblin or something. Just excellent. 

Well, it just wouldn't be OMFG if there wasn't a figure referencing some sort of bodily fluid, or gross-out factor. This character makes me think of what the Knight character from MUSCLE (known as Robin Knight in the original Kinnikuman manga) would look like if he was given an Garbage Pail Kid make-over. So this is actually TWO pretty great homages to 80's properties in a strange way. 

What keeps this from being my absolute favorite character of the bunch is this. The "puke" element separates from the "knight" element. I know a lot of people were delighted by this, but I'm just not into it. I realize there were probably manufacturing problems with designing this as one big piece... but it just screams "you're going to lose part of this toy!" to me. I've actually considered the idea of gluing the two parts together since I bought them. I don't seriously think anyone is going to display these two pieces separately, so what's the point? If you're the kind of collector who gets these in multiple colors, you could then mix-and-match colors from different sets... but I personally don't collect that way. 

"Shirtle" was initially my least favorite character of this series. But his cuteness has worn me down and now I like him quite a bit. He is some sort of bizarre shark/turtle hybrid and of course he's actually wearing a shirt. I guess my initial judgements sprang from the fact that he had so little detail to him compared to some of the other OMFGs. He also feels the least like a MUSCLE character out of all of the characters. But as I previously mentioned, I've grown to love Shirtle. He feels like a bit of a sad-sack, like the Eeyore of the group. But being an ARMORED SHARK he has untold power even he doesn't know about.

"Cry-Borg" is absolutely my least favorite figure of the bunch. Again, as with Stroll above, OMFGs are like pizza (or sex) even when it's not great it's still pretty good. I just don't really like the pose, the sculpt or even the concept here really. I'm not feeling the giant baby character as a part of this line at all. What do I like? Well, the idea of a destructive robot baby is not all bad. And the WMD as his rattle is a clever idea. But ultimately, I would have liked to have seen a more MUSCLE like character than this included. He does balance on that one foot as well, but not exceptionally well. I just... meh.

But luckily there's still so much more to love about OMFG!!! Like "Cuddlehard"!!! He is by far the very BEST that series 2 has to offer! And he's obviously the OMFG logo right off the packaging, turned into a road-warrior!!! He looks just AWESOME. He manages to remind me of both the old Tang mascot-mouths and the Rolling Stones logo too:

plus

Besides the fact that I always find it pleasingly meta when they can somehow work out the branding of a toy-line INTO the toy-line itself:

Case in point.

So basically Cuddlehard is my ULTIMATE OMFG figure. 

But WAIT!!! Then, as an added bonus to my order they tossed in this little guy! It's an announcer guy with a T.V. for a head with the Toy Break logo! He's fantastic!!! Nothing got me smiling bigger than when I saw this included in the box!!! Looking at him, I knew EXACTLY what he was inspired by (and even possibly partially casted-directly from) and that made me even happier! It was this little guy:

Photo courtesy of Toyriffic.blogspot.com
Property of Eric Stettmeier.

The little MUSCLE Announcer Guy! I loved him as a kid! When I would play he would always get himself into trouble and need rescuing. He was the nebbish little brother of Petey Graffiti of the GPK mini-figs. I had two of him actually, because I was given two identical 28-packs that included him. Both of them were green. So getting a surprise "Toy Break" figure who is an homage to this little guy was the cherry on top! (Just FYI: Toy Break is a youtube show done by the folks over at October Toys, who produced the OMFG figures. It's a great show and you should totally check it out!)  

"Why are there always toys piled up everywhere in here!!!???
Clean up this room!"
- My Mom when I was 10, in my head when I took this picture.

So in this shot I just had this perverse need to look at these OMFGs as if I were a 10 year old kid again. I always had HEAPS of MUSCLE guys all over my room, all mixes of colors piled together. There was something truly nostalgic in seeing this little heap of OMFG that took me back there. 

Here I wanted to compare two of my favorite OMFGs with a few of my favorites from other new and old lines of mini-figures. So left to right we have: Flyboy in teal, who is a sidekick figure from the the classic TMNT line. Cuddlehard in flesh from the OMFG series 2. Wendigo in red, from the Monster in My Pocket line. King Castor in purple, from OMFG series 1. Cobra Satan in Orange from the M.U.S.C.L.E. line. Zero Hero in green from the S.L.U.G. Zombies line. And Hiccup from the Spinmaster How to Train Your Dragon Bucket of Dragons set. I think these look great together! 

Heeeeey! Look who got off his lazy butt and took a picture!

So here are the extras that were included in my order beyond the little purple Toy-Break Head guy... A Crawdad Kid postcard done in GPK style... a postcard promotinf D-Con (a convention for toy designers/makers) and some October Toys/Toy-Break collector's cards! These are just an awesome cherry on top of the sundae. 

So I'm waiting now with baited breath for the third series of OMFG to finally be released so I can order some. I want to get them in a nice light blue color so they really stand out from the others I already have. Count on a review of those when I get them as well! Overall I can't recommend these enough to kids of the 80's who played with MUSCLE, or who collected Monster in My Pocket in the early 90's. OMFG will set off all the nostalgic synapses in your brain and release the collector's endorphin you so desperately need! 

Anyway, that's it for me tonight, but I'll be back soon with some actual Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

More Vintage Kid's Books!

So it seems some days like I find more vintage kid's books than ANYTHING at Goodwill. Here's another pile I brought home from the Bangor, ME Goodwill. I'm going to do some posts in the future where I revisist some of the cooler finds I've made, and check out the interiors. But for now, let's just look and see what I brought home, shall we? This entire stack of books came home from one trip, and every book here cost me .99 cents apiece. 

Leotards!

I'll start with this Space Hawks: Faster Than Light Choose Your Own Adventure Book from 1991. Apparently this was the first in 6 books that shared a continuity about space-pilots fighting alien threats. As with most CYOA I find, it looks fun and I plan on giving it a spin. 

Educational!

It wouldn't be a Goodwill Geek post without a handful of Little Golden Books, right? So here's the first one, an old Geography themed LGB that I bet parents FOUGHT over at the book stores back then because their child's Christmas would just not be complete without it. I bet thousands of Mall Santas got requests for this one. 

I f**king WANT his car.

It also wouldn't be a G.G. post without something from Sesame Street. Combined with LGB, this one is like a hurricane of childhood glee for me. This one loosely follows the events of "Follow That Bird".

The Midget Elephant Caper

One of the most exciting finds of this trip was this Insepctor Gadget Little Golden Book! I was disappointed to see there is crayon damage on almost every page of the book in varying degrees. I picked it up anyway because, hey... Inspector Gadget. 

No idea what this is about. Sorry.

I also picked up this bizarro LGB-knock-off. It's from the line of Treasure Books. searching for these online, I believe the spine would have originally been in solid red. I don't know if mine is faded or peeled off. 

I always like finding weird knock-off brands of LGBs to go in my collection, like the Rand McNally Elf Book I found back in April at the same Goodwill. 

Back alley Decepticons? Sounds dirty.

Here we have a Transformers Big Looker Storybook from 1986. "Car Show Blow Up". It's a post Transformers the Movie tale, as it stars Ultra Magnus and Hot-Rod, and features Galvatron as the leader of the Decepticons. Basically the premise is that the Decepticons need to steal human technology from a car show to teach them how to build robots (???) to build a city for them. Not their most shining moment.

Mmmm. Yes. Work that stroller.

I don't know if anyone remembers my thoughts on Ms. Pac-Man from my League post: Ultimate Arcade... but let's just say I felt like I needed to tuck this book between the others I found so I wouldn't get dirty looks for carrying straight-up PORN around the Goodwill. 

More porn.

I'm not sure why ALF is wearing his shirt from the animated series on the cover of this book, because it is based squarely on the sitcom version of the character. It takes place on Earth where ALF spends the entirety of the book naked. And yes, there is a bit of romance between ALF and the anteater.

Add funny caption later. No one will see this.

A Ducktales book! "Webby Saves the Day" is a weird, out of continuity tale where Scrooge's 3 nephews come live live with him and the Beagle Boys invade the mansion. And... well... Webby saves the day. 

Here are a couple of books that originally included read-along albums to play. The Muppets Take Manhattan and the Rankin and Bass adaptation of the Hobbit. That's all I really have to say except that the Hobbit was a favorite of mine as a kid. I don't know if I saw it aired on TV or if we rented it... but Gollum made me terrified and I LOVED it. That is still the Gollum I will always know and love over the Peter Jackson version. And Piggy's sweater there is pretty terrifying too. 

I feel a little cheated because only two
of the family members pictured here are actually
WEARING Cosby sweaters.
What the hell is Claire wearing? A robe?

This was probably my ABSOLUTE favorite find of the lot. The Cosby show scrapbbook from 1986! It's full of interviews and behind-the-scenes stories about each actor and character. I remember The Cosby Show was THE show to watch when I was a kid. I remember the days when they played The Cosby Show and Family Ties back to back and that was the night I was allowed to stay up and watch both shows with my family. This was a wild find for me. Don't judge. 

No this is not an issue of Disney's Gargoyles.

And finally, I know it's not a kid's book, it's a comic book based on a Horror property... so pretty much as far from kid's book as possible... but I got it in the same trip. The NOW comics Fright Night series! And for a change it wasn't priced 1.99! Just the same .99 cents as the other books I picked up. Still a little high for quarter-bin style comics... but oh well.  The writing and plot of this series were terrible, but that didn't stop me from loving them. We get to see Evil Ed in action as a vampire force to be reckoned with, and the resurrection of Jerry Dandridge! (Um... spoilers?)

What I really loved finding were these ads for other NOW comics that I want to go back and find!!! Good ol' Ralph Snart!!! The Terminator? Married With Children? Green Hornet? Speed Racer? TWO different Real Ghostbusters titles? Bats, Cats, and Cadillacs? I'm there!

A pretty great set of books to bring home between Inspector Gadget, another CYOA, ALF, a cheesy Transformers books, The Cosbies, and.... -shiver- Ms. Pac-Man... I was pretty happy. 

Welp. That's it for me kids. I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then Happy Hunting!